The transformation of Greenloop and its members—especially Kate and her slacker husband, Dan—from self-doubting basket cases into formidable warriors transcends the notion of 'evolution.' It’s terrifying. Brooks is not only dealing with the end of humanity; he’s also showing us our further course toward a new, ineluctable, absolute brutality.
Brooks, back with his first novel since his seminal World War Z, employs a similar style here, but the scope—and resulting terror—is significantly more concentrated and immediate ... Piecing together the journal with interviews, transcripts, newspaper clippings, and historical documents, Brooks crafts a terrifying tale that reads like a 'true' crime novel. Set in the very near future, with stellar worldbuilding, a claustrophobic atmosphere, an inclusive and fascinating cast of characters, and plenty of bloody action, this inventive story will keep readers’ heart rates high ... Brooks’s creative and well-executed conceit will have readers searching Wikipedia to look up names and events, even the parts they know are not based on reality. An obvious choice for Bigfoot fans, also suggest this to readers who enjoyed Alma Katsu’s The Hunger and those who appreciate nonfiction survival stories such as Hampton Sides’s In the Kingdom of Ice.
... a terrifyingly realistic survival encounter ... The escalating alarm of naive people preparing to face a curiously intelligent terror from the woods is related straightforwardly even as the beasts come howling in through the front door. The footnoted text and references to historical incidents of catastrophic failure, some fairly recent, give insight into weaknesses humanity blithely ignores every day. The story is told in such a compelling manner that horror fans will want to believe and, perhaps, take the warning to heart.
This 'found document' technique has produced many great novels, but overreliance on the diary form in particular comes dangerously close to making Devolution implausible from the start ... Diary-form problems notwithstanding, the action sequences are riveting – the hulking Sasquatch creatures make for thrillingly fearsome opponents ... It’s not clear just what the author intends us to feel: Are we supposed to be rooting for the self-satisfied residents, or for the displaced killer Sasquatches? The answer could be neither. Devolution’s mocking attitude toward its characters comes at the cost of its suspense ... an ambitious mishmash of individually interesting pieces. Not quite sharp enough for compelling satire, a little too sneering for effective horror, it will find plenty of readers among devotees of Brooks, but will be a miss for most general readers.
Devolution differs from World War Z in a few substantial ways as well, which ultimately make it a more intimate book than its predecessor—and a far stranger one ... gives the narrative the sort of doomed intensity of the best disaster movies ... The reader knows what’s coming, which means that the plot has more than a little horror movie in its DNA. We’re introduced to a disparate group with their own rivalries and shifting dynamics; as anyone who’s seen a horror movie knows, we’re about to see most of these people meet terrible fates ... Brooks offers a bleak view of the world. It’s telling that neither side—human or sasquatch—suggests cooperating to save both communities ... But Brooks’s ambitious take on human (and primate) nature sometimes balances unsteadily with the smaller details of life in Greenloop, including a few odd pop culture references. When Devolution shows a wider canvas—even a secret history of the world—it works brilliantly, and the scenes of two species each fighting for their life abound with harrowing moments. But there are times where the intimate scale of this novel feels at odds with some of Brooks’s larger thematic points. As compelling as it is, you might find yourself wishing he’d opted to tell this story using a larger canvas.
This marks a significant change for Brooks, who is a well-known expert on zombies, which are still widely disputed, like werewolves or climate change ... With Devolution, Brooks brings his considerable investigative powers to a cryptozoological controversy that has been raging in the Pacific Northwest for decades ... Cleverly, some of the elements of this story do seem reasonably plausible, which, as we’ve learned, is the key to any abominable conspiracy theory ... Given the monster stories set upon the world by Mary Shelley and other masters of the macabre, Brooks is trying to fill some awfully big shoes here. The results are uneven ... for far too many pages, Devolution plods along a dull middle ground, not so much building suspense as venting it ... Part of the problem is the diary format. We’re stuck in Kate’s limited perspective trudging through her flat prose ... There’s probably a great horror novel about Sasquatch out there somewhere, but I won’t believe it till I see it.
... delightful ... the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice ... Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict ... Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes ... A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Brooks spins a substantial and suspenseful case for the existence of Bigfoot in this thriller ... Brooks creates vivid landscapes and has a gift for shifting focus in an instant, turning lovely nature scenes suddenly menacing. Brooks packs his plot with action, information, and atmosphere, and captures both the foibles and the heroism of his characters. This slow-burning page-turner will appeal to Brooks’s devoted fans and speculative fiction readers who enjoy tales of monsters.
